Shirley Banton & the Castle of Forgotten Memories
by ninde-oronar
Summary: When Shirley finds a wooden stick in the attic of her aunt's house, she is entranced by its markings. The words are in a language she doesn't know, but yet they speak to her. Meanwhile the mark she has in her neck starts to burn more and more..
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Time was irrelevant. Date was unknown and would stay that way for many years as long as she would call this place her home. It just didn't feel as home anymore.

She pulled open a drawer of her nightstand and took out something that was wrapped in a handkerchief with a flowerprint. Carefully she removed the handkerchief and placed the content in the palm of her hand. A thin line of sunshine peaked through the closed curtains, making the object shine in sparkles.

She took a deep breath and took it between both her thumbs and pointerfingers.

It was a ring of whitegold with a small lily on it.

Her eyes shone with delight just by looking at it. She then closed her eyes and whispered the same sentence over and over again: "Sol suma longis Persephone, minjanu as Ellyasu Tedom."

A bright white light appeared from under her left hand and she frowned but kept her eyes shut. Her right hand started shaking a bit and she bit her lip, but kept on whispering the words.

"Sol suma longis Persephone, minjanu as Ellyasu Tedom."

Her right hand started to shake even more and little drops of sweat appeared on her face.

All of a sudden a venomously green light shot out of her right hand and immediately she opened her eyes.

With pure horror written on her face, she looked at the two bundles of light and saw the ring absorbing the white and green colours. She shook her head and opened her mouth, but no sound came from her lips.

Words were written on the insider of the ring, without pen or pencil, just out of thin air.

Both lights quickly dissappeared.

She was trembling while she held the ring close to her face and read the inscription.

Startled, she dropped it and both her hands folded around her belly.

"No, this can not be true," she whispered, while tears rolled down her cheeks.

For a long time she stood there, in the middle of the room, her hands around her belly. The ring on the ground before her bare feet.

When the sunlight lessened in brightness through the closed curtains and finally dissappeared, it was then she started moving again.

She grabbed a bag, opened on by one the drawers of her closet and nightstand, and threw clothes and other stuff in the bag. She closed it, got onto her feet and looked at the ring in thought. After a few seconds she took it off the ground, looked around the room and ran out of the door, to never set another foot in the room ever again.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Many years later…

The sun was shining. The sky was bright blue, here and there covered with a single white cloud. The weather was perfect to go sit outside on a field of grass with a book or to write some.

In a grey brownish building, standing between a couple of pine trees, a girl sat staring outside in thought. She had her dark blond hair loosely tied in a knot and leaned with her oval shaped face – with some freckles – on her hand She sat in the third row of a total of six rows of school desks, neatly placed one after the other. Before and behind her, her fellow students sat at the desks, some writing, others whispering to their neighbours. However, nobody sat beside her.

The brown building was called the Todokius Secondary School, a school in which the fifteen years old girl had just started her fourth and final year.

Almost automatically her right hand rose up to push the brown, round reading glasses further up on her nose. Her bright green blue eyes looked into nothingness over her glasses.

"Miss Banton, I will NOT ask the question once again if you will keep on staring outside and ignoring this lesson!"

With a shock she came back to reality, turning towards the female teacher and looking at her with guilt written on her face.

Miss Shimmers was in her late twenties, but, with her tightly combed knot of hair, she looked even older than forty. She wore a yellow blouse, with a brown sleeveless jacket and same colored long skirt that reached her ankles. But beside her strong appearance, she was a really friendly teacher. At least, according to Shirley Banton.

"Sorry, miss Shimmers, it won't happen again," she appologised with a reddish colour on her cheeks.

The English teacher looked at her and shook her head sighing, after which she repeated her question.

"I'd like to know if you could think of another word that means 'a large rabbit with long ears and legs'. "

"A hare," Shirley answered immediately.

Miss Shimmers nodded and a small smile touched her face.

"And what is 'a group of three persons'?"

"Trinity," Shirley reacted without thinking.

Miss Shimmers opened her mouth, but didn't speak, just nodded.

Then she asked a few words rapidly one after the other, giving Shirley barely enough time to answer.

"Near or next to?"

"Adjacent."

"Walk unsteadily?"

"Stagger."

"Furtilized eggcell?"

"Zygote."

Miss Shimmers fell silent and looked at her student with amazement on her face.

"Excellent miss Banton,"she said after a silence, "From where is this sudden excellence of the English language?"

Shirley shrugged.

"Well, I'm glad I see such an improvement from last year," she then smiled, recalling this student barely passing the third year of learning, and turned to face all of her students, "For next week I'd like you to read chapters one to three. I'll ask questions about it, and we'll go through the assignments, so be sure to have it all finished when you walk into this classroom the day after tomorrow!"

Shirley wrote everything down in her diary and at that point the schoolbell went off. She sighed, pushed her books in her green backpack, which she then slung around her right shoulder.

Once outside the classroom she checked the white piece of paper in her hand and let her shoulders drop.

"Gymnastics, just great," she complained.

A hand suddenly fell on her shoulder and the bright, happy voice of its owner spoke in a loud manner right next to her.

"What are you complaining about on this beautiful and marvolous day?"

Shirley looked at the girl and just pointed at the piece of paper in her hand.

"Ai," the red-haired, well curved girl said and put her arm around Shirley's shoulder, "It'll be all right. How bad can a first lesson of the year be?"

Shirley looked at her best friend with a knowing look on her face.

"Bad, really bad, Lisanne," she wanted to point out, but she kept the words locked in her mind.

"I just have a bad feeling about it," she said instead as she looked at a tall guy passing by.

"All right people! Please divide in groups of two, thank you!"

Shirley's ears were ringing, caused by the loud voice of their Gymnastics teacher Frank Tennants.

Lisanne Michaels pushed her arm around Shirley's and smiled when Shirley questioningly looked at her.

"You know you want it."

Shirley laughed out loud at her friend's remark and turned to face mister Tennants when he asked for their attention once more.

"Everybody ready? All right! Sam, you and your partner face Layla and partner. Carola, you go stand in front of John."

Mister Tennants directed the groups of two to their places, opposite to each other.

Shirley looked at the persons left over and closed her eyes.

'Please not…'

"Shirley, you go stand in front of Jack."

'Oh God, why?' she thought, 'I knew it!'

The tall, dark-haired guy smiled and watched with enjoyment as Shirley and Lisanne made their way over to stand in front of him and his partner, Sonia Devaille.

"Don't worry," Lisanne whispered, "If he starts teasing again, we'll both get him!"

She waited until Shirley smiled an then faced Jack and Sonia.

"Just look at that Sonia," Jack muttered, "We've been chosen to play with the two stupids of the class!"

"Don't push it, Jack," Lisanne warned him and put her hands on her hips.

"Oh Liz, what are you doing with such a loser anyway?" he asked and shook his head, "You can have friends like us. More of your league."

Sonia started laughing, but Lisanne looked at him disapprovingly.

"I'd much rather hang out with someone who treats all people equally, than with someone who dishes one without even knowing that person!"

"What is there to know about HER?" Jack wondered, placing his hand on his chin, but then was stopped by mister Tennants' loud voice.

"All right, here are the rules!"

He threw a ball to every group of four players and began explaining the rules of the game he invented.

"Every set of two persons is standing in front of their 'enemy',- he moved his pointer finger and middle finger of both hands twice up and down- "also a set of two persons. The place where you stand, is your castle. Your castle is being attacked by your enemy, who will throw a bomb" – he pointed at the one ball remaining in his hand – "towards you. It is your goal to catch the ball before it drops onto the floor and the enemy takes over your castle."

The group of students started mumbling and whispering, but mister Tennants silenced them by continueing to explain the rules.

"That's not all!" he shouted, "The two players of each side have to change places after each throw. This is a game where skills such as concentration and quick reflexes are being tested. But it's only a game, so be fair to one another. Oh, and yes, just one more thing. You cna't keep the ball in your hands for too long as it is a bomb and will go off if you don't throw it away within two or three seconds. It doesn't matter to whom of your enemies you throw it, just throw it as soon as it comes into your hands. Questions?"

Nobody answered.

"All righty, Let's start at the sound of the whistle!"

The squeeky sound of the whistle being blown set the game into action.

Sonia threw the ball to Lisanne, who threw it back to Sonia. Then it went to Shirley, then to Jack, then to Lisanne, to Jack, to Lisanne, to Sonia, Lisanne, Jack… And all of a sudden the ball flew straight at Shirley again. It was a sudden and strange throw and it didn't give Shirley the possibility to catch it correctly and it hit her hard on her neck and left shoulder. With a loud thump! she fell on the floor and the ball rolled over the floor away from her.

"Out! You're out!" Sonia yelled enthusiastically.

Shirley's eyes slid over to Jack's and she saw him smiling with evil eyes.

"Oops," he said dramatically.

"You ass!" she wanted to scream, but it was Lisanne who said the words.

"Mister Tennants, " Lisanne cried out, "Jack is cheating!"

Shirley closed her eyes for a second and touched her neck with trembling fingers. It would give a bruise. Definitely.

"Shirley? Are you all right?"

Mister Tennants' rather soft voice brought her back from her thoughts and she opened her eyes and looked up at him. She smiled softly, nodding, and got back on her feet.

"I'm just going to get some water, if that is all right," she excused herself and without waiting for a reply she walked out of the Gymnastics hall.

In the dressing room she watched at herself in the mirror and angrily wiped away the tears that rolled down her cheeks.

"You are NOT going to let him get to you," she said to herself, "He is so NOT worth it."

She looked into her blue eyes and saw the disbelief. Shaking her head, she sighed and closed her eyes. In that moment of consciousness she scraped all her courage together and then walked back to the Gymnastics hall with her chin up high in the air.

An hour later a relieved Shirley tied her backpack on her bicycle rack and looked up at the sun with a smile on her face.

"Lovely weather, isn't it?"

Lisanne laughed out loud.

"We're off. Even a hard rainstorm would be lovely weather in your eyes."

Shirley grinned.

"That's true."

She and Lisanne got onto their bicycles and rod the two kilometres to Little Whistle, an uninteresting little town with about a thousand habitants, where they both had been living almost all of their lives.

Shirley lived on the Starry Street, number four, whereas Lisanne lived on the Sunny Street, right behind Shirley's street, at number sixteen.

Shirley knew the town like the back of her hand, but there was only one place she'd rather be then her own little bedroom and that was on the bridge overlooking the Tandi-River. It was just the way how the sun reflected in the blue water, how the wind played with the long branches of the large thin trees that were standing along the waterside, that was so inspiring to Shirley. She came there to find peace and quietness and to collect inspiration for her story writing.

"You're so quiet."

Shirley blinked her eyes and turned to look at her friend.

"I'm sorry, I was just in thought," she excused herself.

Lisanne smiled.

"Feel like coming to my house tonight?" she then asked, "My mum and dad will be gone for the evening and so I'll have the house all to myself."

Shirley gave her a knowing grin.

"What are you up to?"

"Nothing special," Lisanne shrugged, "Watching a movie, eating some crisps and just relax."

Shirley laughed.

"Like last time, when the neighbours had called the police because of the loud noises coming from your house?"

"Not that that was ANY of my fault, but anyway. No, this time it'll be quiet and nice. Besides," she added, "I only invite you."

Dramatically Shirley place her hand on her chest and looked at Lisanne with big eyes and mouth open.

"Just me? Really? I'm SO honoured!"

Lisanne laughed.

"So, I assume you'll be there?"

"Of course," Shirley nodded and slapped her hand against Lisanne's, which she held up in the air, just before they rode up the bridge over Tandi-River…


End file.
